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Pakistan’s Nawaz Sharif hit with murder conspiracy charge

Supporters of Islamabad protest leader Tahir-ul-Qadri filed a case on Thursday against the prime minister and other officials over the killing of anti-government demonstrators.

Demonstrators rally against the government in Lahore, Pakistan, on Thursday. Pakistani police have registered allegations of abetting murder against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his brother over the June killing of 14 supporters of a cleric who is currently leading thousands of anti-government demonstrators in Islamabad. (K.M. Chaudary / The Associated Press)

Pakistani supporters of Canada-based cleric Tahir-ul-Qadri wear white burial shrouds as they carry sticks during an anti-government protest in front of the Parliament in Islamabad on Thursday. (AAMIR QURESHI / AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

By Zaheer BabarThe Associated Press

Thu., Aug. 28, 2014

LAHORE, PAKISTAN—Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif faces murder conspiracy charges in a case filed Thursday by supporters of a cleric who has been leading a massive anti-government protest in the capital Islamabad for the last two weeks.

The protests have raised fears of unrest in Pakistan, which is battling Taliban militants and has a history of political turmoil and military rule. Sharif’s election last year marked the first democratic transition in the nuclear-armed nation’s history, but Qadri and Khan have alleged widespread voting fraud.

The criminal case filed by Qadri’s organization names 20 other defendants, including Sharif’s younger brother Shahbaz, who serves as chief minister of the eastern Punjab province, as well as other ministers and police officers, said police officer Sharif Sindhu.

The prime minister enjoys immunity as long as he remains in office, and has refused to step down despite two weeks of protests that at their height saw tens of thousands of people break into the capital’s so-called Red Zone and camp outside parliament.

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The clashes in June began when police started to remove barricades from outside a house and a seminary affiliated with Qadri’s movement in Lahore.

The government said that the barricades were blocking traffic, but critics accused the government of pressuring Qadri’s movement ahead of rallies against Sharif. Clashes broke out in which 14 Qadri supporters were killed and more than 100 people were wounded, including police.

Earlier Thursday Qadri said he has “shut the door” on further talks with the government. He also took issue with the registration of the charges, saying police had not included terrorism allegations from his organization’s complaint. “We don’t accept it,” he said in reference to the case.

The case registration was among 10 main demands Qadri had presented to the government in exchange for calling off the protests.

Pakistan’s military, which exerts strong influence over its politics, has called on the two sides to resolve their dispute through negotiations. Army chief Gen. Raheel Sharif met with the prime minister on Thursday for the second time in 24 hours to discuss the crisis.

The anti-government demonstrations initially locked down Islamabad and disrupted life and business in much of the city. In recent days they have fizzled out, though the crowds outside parliament still surge in the evenings.

Khan and Qadri are demanding that Sharif resign over allegations of vote fraud in last year’s elections — something the prime minister has repeatedly refused to do, though he says he is prepared to negotiate on some of the protesters’ other demands.

Sharif’s defence minister Khwaja Asif said that there was no need for the two opposition leaders to continue the protests. “They should create some space now,” he said. “We should resolve it politically.”

Qadri, a dual Pakistani-Canadian citizen with a wide following, emerged early Thursday from a lengthy late night round of meetings with government representatives to tell his followers that the talks had made no progress.

Sharif, whose election last May marked the first democratic transfer of power since Pakistan was carved out of India in 1947, cancelled a planned official visit to Turkey on Thursday to deal with the situation.

Sharif was forced from office during a previous stint as premier, when the then-army chief Pervez Musharraf seized power in a coup in 1999.

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